ROS2 support

[james-yoo]

Hi LeoRover Team,

I would like to know if there is release plan regarding of ROS2 support of this package so we and others can use Navigation2 stack with LeoRover in simulation.

[bjsowa]

We had some plans on releasing Leo Rover packages for ROS2 but the main issue we have is that not all packages we use on the real robot have been ported. Other than that, we don't have much experience with ROS2.

We could, however, port only the packages for the simulation. This would require releasing leo_common and leo_desktop packages first.

I can't promise any deadlines as it is not high on our to-do list. Any help would be appreciated.

[james-yoo]

Hi bjsowa, Thanks for the initial commit for ros2 regarding of leo_common and leo_desktop packages. As you pointed out, I believe a simulation package could be the first step because we could conduct navigation related test in the virtual environment.

[bjsowa]

FYI, I started porting the simulation, but I stumbled upon this issue: ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs#1272 and I won't be able to continue before it is fixed or I find a workaround for this, because I'm unable to even spawn the model in Gazebo.

[bjsowa]

I don't like the idea of maintaining two separate descriptions (SDF and URDF) of the robot. Seems like a regression to me. I am going to try find another solution.

[newcanopies]

exporting GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=path/to/rosworkspace/robot_description does not work. the workaround to this bug is placing a copy of the package " robot_description " (containing URDF & meshes), under ~/.gazebo/models this quick-fix does require maintaining two instances of the robot_description package.

[newcanopies]

~/.sdformat/sdformat.log

migration notes on spawn/delete for ROS2

[bjsowa]

The model now spawns with the patched version of gazebo_ros_pkgs: ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs#1284

I hope I'll be able to merge the changes to the upstream repo.